


Loose Ends

by RainbowSprinkleDonuts



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allydia only post-mortem, Could be read as friendship or something more, Depends, F/F, Lydia greiving, Malia is basically a puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 02:03:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2331149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowSprinkleDonuts/pseuds/RainbowSprinkleDonuts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe she's drunk on grief, but it surprises Lydia how much of Allison she sees in the new coyote in their midst. </p>
<p>Drabble that attempts to fill in a few of the moments in between Season 4, where Malia slowly nuzzles her way into Lydia's heart. Loosely canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loose Ends

**Author's Note:**

> So Malia is basically a puppy and Lydia could use the companionship. It could be read as romantic, or friendship. Either way, how could anyone resist those big brown eyes?

To say that there is a void in Lydia’s life is an understatement. A chasm. A canyon. A black hole. Those are slightly better metaphorical packaging for what Allison leaves behind. She says her name several times a day. Sometimes it’s the subject of a statement. Sometimes she calls it out into the woods, not expecting an answer. Every now and then she utters it, under her breath, just to feel the syllables on her lips, against her teeth and tongue.

_Allison. Allison. Allison._

If she keeps her birth moniker hanging in the air, amongst the other names called in the halls, mixed in with the rustling of changing seasons, perhaps Lydia can keep her alive in some way. Some lingering, echoing reminder that the name used to mean something. It used to summon a willowy breath of chocolate curls and dimples. At the very least, it’s is verification that Lydia won’t forget her, as that is what terrifies her in the most solitary reaches of her mind. The notion that some day, when her vision frays, that Allison’s pale, round visage will blur, the way the tears that drip down her chin distort the ink in her notes and smudge it beyond recognition.

She won’t lose that, she can’t lose that. It all happened so quickly and so hushed, that she has nothing left but that. There was no ceremony, no obituary. Allison gave her life for Lydia, and no one will ever know. There’s something so inherently fucked about that.

No one will talk about it. No one will dare touch the boxes that hold her bows, her sweaters, her scent. Perhaps it’s too much on the wolves, but Lydia could do with a whiff of that sweet, lavender shampoo.

But no. It’s shut up in a closet with the rest of everyone’s memories of her. Lydia’s got nothing but a tangle of arms she used to wrap around someone who is no longer here bear their weight.

It’s no surprise Malia strolls right into their little group so easily. She lacks any semblance of social graces, tact, can hardly grasp what day of the week it is… yet she carries herself along blithely unaware of what she lacks, of the Allison shaped hole she’s standing in.

She doesn’t replace Allison, because she _isn’t_ Allison. And yet she is here, and Allison is not. That’s about where their common thread begins and ends in Lydia’s eyes.

It doesn’t stop Lydia from nearly getting knocked over by nostalgia at Malia waltzing down the hall, the new girl, another new girl. Allison was once the new girl. Maybe Lydia is seeing things. She’s certainly hearing things, so it wouldn’t be a far cry. But maybe she’s so tired of seeing empty spaces, matte photographs, that she’s projecting her dead friend onto this scrappy mutt they found in the woods. And that’s not a metaphor.

Lydia turns away, blinking a back a few rogue tears inching towards the corners of her eyes, and then Malia is gone.

They don’t really have time or reason to interact much. Malia is a point of interest for Lydia, among several startling, murderous developments involving her friends, but she hardly seeks her out.

The quiet retreat of her parent’s lake house is what she prefers. The din of her life falls away and she can pluck strings and bash piano keys to try and find her, to listen for a whisper that she was promised because she is dead now, so Lydia should be able to hear her, right?

The lake house remains a fortress of deafening silence, save the wind on the water and the crunch of the decaying leaves.

It’s no surprise to Lydia the day she shows up on the creaking porch, hair mussed and eyes wide, panicked. She’d probably find a leaf or two in that mop, Lydia mused to herself. It was a cruel thought, and she felt a flicker of a long since doused flame inside her, one she hadn’t fanned since her queen bee days.

Malia struggles with a nest of textbooks and notebooks in her arms, and Lydia just steps back into the foyer, giving her the space to come in. It’s not that she’s not certain that the girl is in desperate need of academic tutelage, but she’s more certain that Stiles is worried about her, and unable to tear himself away from the matters at hand, has sent his lapdog instead.

If that was the case, Malia was not made aware of her purpose. She begins to rattle off the subjects she’s failing (a shorter list would be the one’s she’s passing), and her highlighter system, and her hair seems to get even messier as she verbally unloads.

It presented a neat distraction, so Lydia settles in with Malia Tate at her kitchen table and begins to chip away at the stacks of books towering around them. They toil away into the afternoon, the sun dipping behind spidering tree limbs. It’s nice for Lydia. She feels needed and useful and warm.

She realizes the heat comes from Malia, sidled up next to her, pressed against her right side as she intently follows Lydia’s instruction on the paper. It was innocent, Lydia was sure to remind herself of that, a residual habit of a girl not quite domesticated yet. Still, the contact is too much for her, and she makes a point to put some air between them, chilled by the breeze seeping in from the open window.

“Oh, sorry,” Malia says meekly. Lydia brushes it off. It is nice to see that flicker of fear she can still impose upon someone.

Malia takes off with the moon at half mast in the sky, but she leaves her books at Lydia’s insistence that they’ll pick it all up again tomorrow.

Bright and early on that Saturday morning, Malia is at her door. Lydia didn’t get a text, a phone call, nothing to alert her intended hour of arrival. She rolls a gibe about putting a bell on Malia around in her head, snickering to herself. The books remain untouched, and Lydia fixes herself some coffee. She absentmindedly brews the full pot, and brings over two mugs to the table, forcing one into Malia’s line of sight where she literally has her nose to the page. The mug Malia sniffs, before taking a regretful gulp.

“Careful, it’s hot,” Lydia teases her, after her tongue is already scalded. Malia’s scowl melts into a smirk. Lydia sips on her own mug delicately and Malia does her best to mirror her.

They get through algebra before lunch rolls around, and the way Malia looks up at her, slack jawed at how easily it comes to Lydia, is familiar in a delicious way. Her eyes flash too blue sometimes, but they’re just as enraptured with Lydia’s brainpower as Allison’s used to be. It begs another sad smile forth, and Lydia buries it in her sandwich.

Halfway through ancient Greek history, Lydia catches a glaze forming over Malia’s eyes. It appears that the learning curve has peaked for the day, and she’s startled to find it’s 10 pm already. Her arm sweeps across the table to whisk the breadcrumbs and sandwich scraps onto the floor, mostly carnage from Malia’s work-in-progress table manners.

Lydia tells her that she can just stay the night. She doesn’t tell her that it’s because she’s sure Malia will show up at some ungodly hour again tomorrow. She’s trying this thing where she’s not rude. It’s not fun, anyway, when Malia takes everything literally with a smile and a shake of her puppydog head.

Lydia shows her to the bathroom with a stack of sleep clothes in her arms, and retires to her own room. She’s barely settled when Malia strolls in through the door, and sits crosslegged on the end of the quilted bed. She’s smiling expectantly.

“The guest rooms are down the hall, if you…”

“Oh, no, I’ll sleep next to you tonight, keep you warm as a thank you for helping me.” Well this is new. Lydia’s taken aback expression says as much. Malia states it with such blind enthusiasm that it almost pains Lydia to object.

She sighs through her nose, “Keep me warm… as a thank you, right, okay, sure.” Room is made on the bed for Malia to crawl up adjacent to her, circle a spot on all fours, only to collapse into it and curl her spine unnaturally into Lydia’s side. Almost lupine like, if she dares to say. Her hair spills down into the crevices made by her bent limbs and the arc of her neck. Lydia is acutely aware of her breathing, the acoustics of which sound almost like she’s exhaling through her teeth.

She lifts her book from the bedside table, and attempts to flip to her dogeared page when a voice vibrates against her leg.

“What are you reading?” But Malia is facing away from her, face buried in the patchwork of her grandma’s restless hands.

“How did you…”

Malia flips over onto her back, her head at Lydia’s knees and her legs tucked into her vaguely fetal position.

“I could smell the pages. It’s a book, right?”

Lydia nods, looking at it herself just to be sure.

“So what is it?”

“Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman.”

“Why do you still read books when school is over and you already know everything?”

Lydia frowns away a smile at the remark, and thinks about how to explain this.

“Well, it’s not for studying, this is a book I read because I like the words. They make me feel better.”

“What could Walt Whitman have to say about grass that makes you feel better?”

At this, Lydia actually chortles. Malia does as well, unsure why, but does so out of some monkey-see-monkey-do mentality she’s adopted.

“It’s not about grass, it’s poetry. About all kinds of things.”

Malia seems to understand to some degree, some abstract recollection of what poetry was from before the accident. She couldn’t have been that young.

“Read me some.”

It’s more of a command than a request. As much as Lydia bristles at being told what to do, Malia has already settled her head on Lydia’s thigh with a bright smile and droopy eyes. It’s such a strange sight, and she hangs around with a pack of werewolves for christ’s sake.

She doesn’t respond, she just starts.

_With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,_   
_I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for_   
_conquer'd and slain persons._   
  
_Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?_   
_I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit_   
_in which they are won._

Exhaustion weighs heavy on Malia’s eyes with every blink.

She slurs her words slightly when she asks, “He’s talking about after a war is over?”

Lydia nods, mildly impressed with her peaked interest in the medium, and presses on.

  
_I beat and pound for the dead,_   
_I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them._   
  
_Vivas to those who have fail'd!_   
_And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!_   
_And to those themselves who sank in the sea!_   
_And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes..._

Lydia’s throat thickens over the last line of the verse. Her pause is not lost on Malia, whose brow furrows with concern.

Lydia finishes with graveled words, “ _And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known._ ”

Malia scrunches up her nose for a moment, and then realization washes over her.

She merely utters a soft, “Oh.”

Lydia doesn’t need to delve any further into any subject connotations, although she does feel a faint urge to pat Malia on the head. She turns the page with the pad of her thumb, and lulls the coyote to sleep with soft words from yellowed pages.

It’s a welcome juxtaposition she finds herself in as she reads aloud, having a bedfellow again. Malia is not familiar, she’s not Allison. She sleeps in a coil at her hip, and yet, just the steady rhythm of another set of lungs in the room is enough to quiet the voices for the night.

Lydia advises her to keep up their tutor sessions as many weekends as possible. Malia obeys with an affirmative shake of her head, and shows up every weekend or so. Sometimes she arrives with a basket of treats, muffins from Kira, brownies from a box courtesy of Scott’s mother. They’re all concerned for her, shut up in this cabin all the time. It’s a twisted wink at Little Red Riding hood, and Lydia laughs as the notion crosses her mind. Although, the components are all mixed up, as Malia is a coyote, not a wolf, and Lydia’s hair has long since lost it’s vibrant red sheen.

Malia cannot offer any baked goods, having been advised by Stiles to stay out of the kitchen, after an unfortunate microwave incident. So instead, she brightly offers to teach Lydia how to defend herself. She doesn’t understand when Lydia tenses up, and how could she? Those sinking sunsets in the woods were for her and Allison, no one else. She lets the gesture tug at something she’s been ignoring for a while now, and politely declines.

It’s nothing revolutionary as far as friendships go. It’s no surprise when Malia follows at her heels almost everywhere she goes, into the art room when Lydia is trying to focus on the list She’s petulant, whiny, and huffs at the lack of stimulation afforded to her as she sits idle, dutifully observing.

Lydia feels her hovering over her shoulder, the heat radiating against her back, before she registers her presence. For a single heartbeat, Lydia’s cruel, starving mind lets her believe it’s her leaning over, cracking an ancient legend in Latin, finding a code in an old French lithograph and whispering it in Lydia’s ear.

Malia’s huff of frustration breaks the veil, and Lydia adopts vexation to mask her anguish. She wonders if Malia has learned to smell the difference yet.

She is unable to shake her for the remainder of the day, and she doesn’t mind it. It’s reminiscent of lighter days, when they were just meddling kids, mixed up in places they shouldn’t have been. Lydia feels safer under Malia’s watchful eye through the window, than she does surrounded by Beacon Hills’ entire police force. And that’s something. It only takes a simple glance thrown her way for Malia to fetch Lydia from the room to head home.

A snarl at the foot of her bed that rouses Lydia from sleep, and scares her half to death. She blinks rapidly between her gasping breaths to bring her room into focus, and a pair of blue eyes break through the dark. She growled. She really just _growled_.

“What the hell are you doing?” she cried, exasperation mixed with residual panic.

“I heard you, you were screaming, so I came,” she states, like it was that simple. Lydia doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to this nonsense. Her head falls back against her pillow with a grunt that is so un-Lydia.

“What are you scared of?” Malia presses. There’s an urgency in her voice. Lydia doesn’t know how to respond, but she tries.

“I’m not… that’s not why I was screaming.”

She can now see Malia’s head cock to the side in the moonlight, her hair flopping with it. She sniffs the air, confounded. It’s cute. She’s cute. Stiles infatuation is not unfounded. Ambitious, but justifiable.

 

“It’s grief, that scent.” Lydia reads her mind. She expects Malia to bow out at the false alarm. She’s already closed her eyes in pursuit of sleep when the mattress sinks behind her, and arms flip her over swiftly and draw her in. Her face is flush against the cotton of Malia’s t-shirt by the time she gets her bearings.

The arms around her hold her a little too tightly. She smells of denim and dried leaves where there used to be lillies and oiled leather. Straw hair falls across her face, instead of soft dark waves. She’s not her, though, and it hurts more than she thought it would. She doesn’t fill the empty spaces, she doesn’t _fit_ into them, not even close. She’s on the verge of anger, when Malia’s hands comb through her hair, pacifying her instantly. How could the girl willing to leave her friends for dead at the first sign of danger understand compassion and comfort?

 

Lydia reminds herself that of all the foreign concepts she’s laid out on the table in numbers and phrases over the past few months, grief is something Malia already understands all too well.

She’s not the only one with holes in odd shapes nobody can fill. Fat tears darken the grey fabric of Malia’s shirt, and Lydia reckons that between the two of them, if she were to tie their loose ends together, maybe they might not drag along the ground so much. Malia nuzzles the crown of Lydia’s head, and she decides that yes, that would be alright.

 


End file.
